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Every kid goes through a Caesar salad phase. Discovering that the dish coexists on both regular and child menus, and that parents are likely to be permissive as it is technically salad, a kid can get away with eating only this for years. Powered by a bottle of store-bought Caesar dressing, this phase can last well into one’s 20s, so long as the child never once encounters a properly made Caesar salad, such as the one at Jacobs & Co.

At the downtown Toronto steakhouse, you can spend hundreds on a piece of meat, carefully aged slabs of beef flown in from Australia, Japan or Nebraska, cooked expertly in an 1800 degree oven. It is also a place where you’ll find a Caesar salad made in the old style. You’ll need to be older than me to remember, but servers used to wheel over a cart and make your salad tableside. At Jacobs, in the dimly lit dining room with fat booths for high rollers, they still do this.

ONLINE: Visit thestar.com to watch a video of this dish being prepared.

On a weekday afternoon, chef Danny McCallum waits outside for me, enjoying his daily cigar break. Putting down his locally-rolled cigar and a glass of white wine, he takes me inside through a secret door to the dining room, where he’s got a Caesar cart ready to go.

The strange part of the Caesar’s perennial appeal is that the key ingredients are raw egg and anchovy, elements that gross out and scare off many timid eaters. But by the time it’s done — egg used to emulsify olive oil into a thick dressing, anchovy employed for salt as much as fishiness — casual diners won’t pick out those ingredients. I’ve never heard a person say that they won’t eat a Caesar because of the anchovies.

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Before demonstrating how to assemble the salad, McCallum shows me his wooden bowl, gouged by forks in the production of hundreds of Caesars, which makes it better at the job. Pausing, he goes through each ingredient, explaining what is or isn’t important about them.

BOWL: “You can feel that it’s been worked in by the fork a little bit. So there’s a bit of texture to it. It helps a lot. At home, what I’d suggest is smushing the anchovy onto your board a little bit. Same with the garlic. You can put a little coarse salt on the board and then put the garlic and anchovy on there and smush it a bit with your knife before you put it in the bowl.”

PEPPER: If you think of the pepper like sand paper this is going to help grind things up. This looks like a lot of pepper. And it is. But this is part of what makes a Caesar salad.”

ANCHOVY: “Don’t use anchovy paste. Unico brand is pretty consistent and I find them at Loblaws on the regular.”

SALT: “This is actually Cypriot sea salt from Cyprus. But you can use any flaked white sea salt. You don’t necessarily want to use sel gris where there are big chunks that are harder to break up. This salt is crystals so it makes it a lot easier to crumble and break up.”

EGG YOLK: “Egg yolks are always going to differ. But it doesn’t matter what size egg yolk you’re using. What you want to do is use this egg yolk as a measuring point against everything else. It’s been a source of constant debate, how thick our dressing should be. It’s not the end of the world if you get a little bit of white in there.”

TABASCO and WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE: “I’m going to coat that egg yolk with a nice even layer. We found that trying other hot sauces, nothing ever came as close. The first Caesar salad was made in Mexico. I’m pretty sure they did a lot of trade along the gulf coast. I would venture to say that this is what was used in the original Caesar salad. And same with Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce.”

VINEGAR: “Just the cheapest red wine vinegar available because we’re using a few drops of this just to bring the acid up a little more than just the lemon.”

OLIVE OIL: “This is a cheap olive oil, a Greek and Italian blend. A really good finishing olive oil is going to get too peppery and too bitter as a dressing.”

BACON: “We go through probably 60 slabs, at least 200 pounds of bacon every five days. Just on Caesars. All we do is slice it into lardons and cook it over a low, slow temperature in a cast iron pan. We add it at the end. I think it’s absolutely fine without the bacon. I think it’s rich enough without it.”

CROUTONS: “You can never make enough croutons. You’ll make one whole baguette’s worth of croutons and then be like, damn, where’d they all go. It’s like gravy.”

LETTUCE: “It’s not possible to over mix it. But it is possible to clench it too tight with the tongs. I’m grabbing onto it but I’m not clenching down, to bust or bruise any leaves. I want it to stay as crisp as possible.”

Caesar Salad

1 loaf of sourdough bread

8 strips of double-smoked bacon, sliced into small strips

2 tbsp black pepper, coarsely ground

1 tsp (5 mL) coarse salt

2 black anchovies

1 clove garlic, minced

2 egg yolks

1 tsp (5 mL) Tabasco sauce

1 tsp (5 mL) Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp (15 mL) red wine vinegar

2 tsp (10 mL) lemon juice

2/3 cup (160 mL) olive oil

¾ cup (180 mL) Grana Padano (or Parmesan) cheese, grated

1 large head romaine lettuce, sliced into salad-sized pieces

splash of olive oil

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350F/180C.

Slice bread into small cubes. In a large mixing bowl, toss with splash of olive oil, salt and pepper. Spread on baking sheet. Toast for 12 to 15 minutes, until crisp but not hard. Set aside to cool.

In a large cast iron pan on low heat, sauté bacon until firm but not too crisp, about 25 minutes. Strain to remove excess fat and set aside to cool.

On a cutting board, use coarse pepper and salt to help mash anchovies and garlic. Transfer to large mixing bowl with egg yolk. Add Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce and whisk. Add vinegar and lemon juice and whisk. Slowly drizzle oil in thin stream, whisking constantly. If oil is pooling, stop adding and whisk until all oil is incorporated. Gradually emulsify until thick. Add cheese and combine.

Add croutons, bacon and lettuce. Use tongs to mix thoroughly. Distribute into four bowls. Garnish with more cheese.

Makes 4 servings.

Star tested by Corey Mintz. If you know a great GTA restaurant recipe tell him and he’ll ask the chef to share it. Email: mintz.corey@gmail.com Twitter: @coreymintz Corey’s new book is How to Host a Dinner Party.

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